New York — The dollar gained and stocks on Wall Street mostly rose on Wednesday after US private sector hiring surged in February, underscoring the economy’s strength and adding to expectations the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week. The ADP National Employment Report showed private payrolls grew by 298,000 jobs last month, well above economists’ expectations for a gain of 190,000. January’s private payrolls gains were revised up to 261,000 from 246,000. The report raised expectations of a robust payrolls report for February from the US Labour Department on Friday. Traders now see an 88.6% chance the Fed will raise rates by 25 basis points at its policy-setting meeting on March 15, up from 81.9% on Tuesday, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool. The ADP report led a gauge of global equity markets to pare most losses and pushed European stocks higher. The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.23% after declining the four previous sessions. MSCI’s all-country world...
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